Watson Brake
Oldest pyramidal complex in North America

The dates of Mississippian or "moundbuilding" culture seem to be getting pushed back further in time. While Poverty Point was previously considered the oldest "mound" site in North America, that distinguished honor now apparently belongs to Watson Brake, discovered about 30 years ago, also in Louisiana, near Monroe. While Poverty Point dates back to about 1500 BC, Watson Brake apparently dates back to about 3400 BC. Watson Brake is a collection of 11 pyramidal mounds arranged into a large oval apparently surrounding a large central plaza.

Watson Brake mound site

Unlike Poverty Point, as yet there are no signs of residential sites at Watson Brake. Anthropologists currently speculate that Watson Brake may have been a constructed site for a band or bands of hunter-gatherers to conglomerate, perhaps for ritual or ceremonial purposes.

Interestingly, Watson Brake seems to predate the Olmec civilization by almost 2,000 years. The Olmecs also erected "mounds," or earthen pyramids, thought to be the forerunners of later Mayan and Mexica (Aztec) stone pyramids. (Mounds, or pyramids, were also built in the Andes region of South America.) This leads me to wonder if these Watson Brake "moundbuilders" may have been related to Olmecs, perhaps their forebears who decided to travel farther south into southern Mexico and became the "mother culture" of the later Mayas and Aztecs. Or perhaps much of Native America descends from a common culture that began erecting pyramidal and other monumental structures as terrestrial representations of their view of the cosmos and spiritual beliefs.

More food for thought!